


Never Overdressed

by iimpavid



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anniversary, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Gadgets, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M, fashion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 20:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid
Summary: prompt: write about things in Peter Nureyev's wardrobe that Juno finds extremely distressing but also something distressing that Juno gave himThis isn't a true 5+1 but I was tired of looking at it so now I'm going to make you look at it instead.





	Never Overdressed

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: write about things in Peter Nureyev's wardrobe that Juno finds extremely distressing but also something distressing that Juno gave him
> 
> This isn't a true 5+1 but I was tired of looking at it so now I'm going to make you look at it instead.

**1: a  rock**

Juno picked through Peter’s multi-tiered jewelry box like a crow. There were so many options, all of them heinously expensive and equally appropriate for the current heist. The Roses were in town and Dahlia couldn’t decide which thumb-sized precious gem belonged on his gauzy shawl more. He lifted up one shaped like a bee, its body a smoky gem that twisted black and gold, its wings woven from hair-fine platinum wire.

“Oh, that  _ is _ a fine choice for the casino floor,” Peter praised, affixing his cufflinks with practiced ease. “I picked it up in the next system over a few years ago when I thought I might try my hand at jewelry-making. I think they called it the _ Desiderate Aspiration _ \-- a wonderful name, don’t you think? So poetic! A longed-for goal, as if its maker had no plan in mind at all, only the hope to discover one!” 

“You’re  _ kidding _ me.” 

“About what?” 

“You made  _ the Desiderate Aspiration into a tacky bee brooch _ ? This thing--” Juno gestured with the brooch, “it’s been missing for ten years-- arms dealers all over the galaxy are trying to  _ replicate _ it. It can make a multi-refraction sight with a range of over four miles on a foggy day.” He was talking a little fast, boggled by the fact that he held a sharpshooter’s wet dream in the palm of his hand and Peter had made it into  _ jewelry _ .

“Dahlia, you don’t really think it’s  _ tacky _ , do you?”

“That’s not the p--” he stopped himself because clearly Peter didn’t want to talk about it.  “No, it’s not tacky. It’s kind of pretty if you can overlook how potentially-deadly it is. This thing should be in a vault somewhere for safe keeping.” 

“I found it in a vault somewhere. It wasn’t particularly safe there if you ask me.”

“So, what? It’s safer in your jewelry box?”   


“Exponentially. Unless, of course, you wear it to our roulette game. Are you feeling lucky, Dahlia, dearest?”

He weighed the crystal in his palm and put it back into the pile of baubles that comprised Nureyev’s jewelry box. “Not  _ that _ lucky.” 

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Peter laughed and plucked a strand of pearls from the hoard. They gleamed a pale lavender in the light. “Try these. They’ll bring out your eyes.”

 

**2: gum**

The fault was entirely Peter’s. Truly. He should have learned long ago that sending Juno to look through his pockets was a fool’s errand. Juno, chewing the gum he’d found in Peter’s coat, handed over the laser pen in a state of blissful unawareness-- until Peter stopped him, that is. Grabbed him and put hands on either side of his face. “Juno! Stop! How many times have you chewed that gum?” 

“What the-- was I supposed to be counting?” 

“Yes! That gum is an extremely powerful explosive; you prime it by chewing! Spit it out, please! And do it gently!” He expectantly held out his hand for the C4-elastane.

Juno’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. He understood, at last, why Mick had a pathological and irrational fear of swallowing gum-- except this wouldn’t sit in his stomach for the next decade, it’d paint the walls with his insides. With exaggerated care and not a single thought for his dignity, he obediently spat the gum into Peter’s palm.

Peter didn’t chuck it out the window or drop it into a potted plant or anything reasonable like that. He squished it between his fingers, clearly testing for something, and Juno flinched. “It’s not  _ that _ unstable, Juno, relax. The human jaw generates far more force.” He crouched before the safe and carefully, meticulously, fitted the explosive around its electronic lock.

Juno laughed. “Right, alright, fine. Do you want me to go digging around your coat pockets for a fuse and matches next?” 

“Of course not, I have those right here.” Peter produced a coiled orange cord from his waistcoat pocket and affixed it to the explosive.

“What happened to “let’s bore out the lock, grab the blueprints, and leave  _ without getting caught _ ”?” 

“This is more fun. Besides, they’ve soundproofed most of this wing. There’s nothing to worry about-- get under the desk in case there’s shrapnel.”    
  
“I feel like you being a pyromaniac is something I should have known going into this.” 

Peter grinned and flicked open the lighter. His smile was sharp and danced in the wavering flamelight. “Fire in the hole.”

 

**3: literal, actual poison**

Juno sat at the vanity, shuffling through the carefully-catalogued collection of make up across its top while Peter showered. Peter didn’t skimp on much, least of all his “war paint”. Powders, pencils, pastes, brushes and balms and more all in every possible hue, but also latex and solvents and prosthetics. The options for what to wear, who to become, were limited only by Juno’s imagination.

All Juno wanted was lipstick. Preferably purple but by this point he was willing to wear anything.

Another small drawer turned up a dozen brushes made from a variety of hairs and a small collection of pigments in individual crystal pots. 

_Victory_. 

Juno dipped a brush into the glass on the vanity and grabbed the nearest color-- a screaming shade of blue that would, he suspected, fluoresce under blacklight. The solid pigment took water easily, forming a smoothe paste with just a little effort.

He coated the brush in it and leaned in to the mirror just a fraction, studying the curve of his own lip line.

“Let me help you with that.” Peter appeared at his elbow in a satin robe and plucked the brush from between Juno’s fingers.

“I’m capable of applying my own lipstick, thanks,” he grumbled, reaching for the brush. 

“Oh, certainly,” Peter said, straddling the vanity’s bench to lean into Juno’s space, “but I find it adds a certain intimacy when you allow someone else to do it for you and, besides, this particular shade is made with a high concentration of venusian sandwasp venom.”

“And…  _ why _ is that a problem?” Juno knew the answer couldn’t be anything good.

“If you don’t apply it correctly you’ll spend the evening paralyzed, possibly comatose,” he said simply, “and then where will I be? Dateless and lonely, that’s where. Now come here.” He gently took Juno’s chin in hand, angled him toward the light.

“Wait-- that’s  _ poison _ ?” 

“Yes, Juno, that’s what I said. It’s very useful-- you can just kiss all your problems away.” The way Peter said it, fond and wistful, made it clear that he spoke from experience.

“Can I eat anything with it on? What if I lick my lips?” 

“You’ll only make that mistake once. Buf if you want this shade of blue I think I have it from a less-exotic source.” 

Juno nodded, “Give me that, then.  _ Please _ .”

 

**4\. a necklace**

“There are _people_ in that shipping container where we, too, will soon be! You can’t tell me these thugs deserve to live.” 

Juno opened his mouth to argue-- then snapped it shut again. They would unpack their right to act as arbiters of justice  _ later _ . “We can’t just stab our way out of this, Nureyev,” he hissed, trusty laser cutter slicing neatly though the rope around his wrists and ankles first, then Peter’s. “But we do have to get out of here.

“Of course not. Where would I have hidden a knife in this outfit?” Peter rolled his wrists to get blood flowing properly into them. he jerked at the pendant dangling from his neck. “Look away, darling.” 

Juno didn’t get a chance to ask him why before Peter marched smarly toward the mercenary guarding them and, in a flash of gestures too quick to follow, split the pendant open and wrapped a piano wire around the man’s throat. There was a struggle. Brief and nauseating. The merc almost lost his head completely. 

Blood soaked the entire left leg of Peter’s trousers.

“Oh, god,” Juno groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them again Peter held a gun out to him. He took it, his fingers feeling a little numb. “That was disgusting.”

“Don’t look down, I made a bit of a mess,” Peter advised, pulling him to his feet. He looked as apologetic as he could given the circumstances. “You just cover me and we’ll be gone in no time.” 

 

**5. shoes**

It put Peter on the spot in a painful way when Juno handed him a present apropos of nothing late one night. The ship was space-silent except not because its engines always hummed and interstellar comms always pinged onion-shell satellites to navigate the void. They were the last two awake, as happens sometimes, sipping hot chocolate in the galley and enjoying each other’s company without needing to say a word.

The wrapping paper made a gentle susurrus as it slid across the table. “I, uh, got you something, the last time we were at port.” That explained, then, where Juno even got the wrapping paper to begin with because Peter was certain they had none on board. He’d been hanging onto this gift for months.

“Oh, Juno,” he said, delighted, “You didn’t need-- whatever  _ for _ ?” He didn’t think it was his birthday. He didn’t know when his birthday was but he thought for sure that this wasn’t it.

Juno blinked. The answer jerked out of him. “It’s, uh, for our anniversary?” 

Peter blushed a sudden and shameful red. Anniversaries were better left to people who lived lives of sureness marked by guarantees of consistency and significance. People who stayed on one planet long enough to know the date they met. 

“It’s not a big deal or anything,” Juno hurried to say as Peter confessed, “I completely forgot, Juno, I’m  _ so sorry _ \--” 

Juno kept talking over him, “I don’t actually care, okay,  and you didn’t have to get me anything. It’s not like we talked about this being A Thing we do. I just. I saw something and I thought you’d like it and I just-- I thought I’d save it for. Just open it, okay.” 

Uncertainty gripped him. Peter looked down at the box. It was wrapped with perfectly-crisp folds. The satin ribbon crossing it was tied off in a symmetrical bow. The paper had no scuffs or scratches or jagged edges.

“Juno, I--” 

“Open it,” he insisted. “The date thing-- who  _ cares _ . I just really think you’ll like this.” 

The unbridled enthusiasm gleaming in his eye eased Peter’s guilt somewhat and made room for the awkward joy of anticipating a gift. He unwrapped it carefully, pulling the bow free and slipping his fingertips under the folds in the paper to pop them loose from the clear tape that held them down.

“You’re supposed to rip it.” 

Peter stopped and lifted his gaze from the box to make eye contact. “People give me a lot of things, Juno, but I don’t get many gifts. I’m  _ savoring _ the experience. And you did such a nice job of wrapping it-- I’d hate to ruin your hard work.” Never mind the pulse of habit in the back of his mind that commanded he save the ribbon and save the paper because he would surely need them again for something, somewhen. 

Juno made an impatient noise. “Rita wrapped it, come on.”

“All the more reason to be respectful.” He went even slower, just to watch how it needled at Juno, smirking the whole time.

Juno sighed. Propped his chin in his hand, pouting but resigned to not getting his way. Peter wished he had a camera on him, in his button, something to preserve the expression on Juno’s face.

Then he lifted the lid from the box and mischief melted into genuine awe. 

“Oh, Juno,” he breathed, wide-eyed. His hand floated to set the lid aside and he lifted one of the stilettoes from the box. “Oh, Juno, you  _ didn’t _ .” 

He held the shoe gingerly so as not to leave fingerprints on the mirror-bright leather. A fingernail on the sole confirmed the density-- it was constructed of a single steel shank from toe to the point of the heel. He stared at the maker’s mark embossed in the leather of the arch, a smile stealing across his face. 

“Giuseppe Giuliani only produced a dozen pairs of these for a performance piece. Collectors have killed for them. They’re supposed to be indestructible,” he told Juno, just shy whispering. He slipped his fingers over the catch on the heel-- unsheathing a six inch dagger, more razor-bladed spike than a knife, hidden beneath the stiletto point. There were tears in his eyes when he looked back across the table, “I’ve never been able to afford a pair.” 

Bewildered, Juno blurted, “I-- I got ‘em at a flea market,” suddenly panicked that they were bargain bin knock offs of some limited edition he hadn’t known existed in the first place.

Peter burst into laughter and hugged the shoe to his chest. “A flea market! That old bat Martha Pryce-Harold must have finally died,” he said, sounding fond. He was careful to sheathe the dagger heel. “She was such a packrat. She probably forgot she had them. Juno, thank you! And I didn’t get you  _ anything _ !” 

“No, no don’t-- forget the whole anniversary thing. I got you  _ knife shoes _ by  _ accident _ , oh my god,” he shook his head, disbelieving.

“I  _ love _ my knife shoes,” Peter declared, grinning, “and I’m going to wear them until they fall apart. How will I ever thank you enough?”

“You can’t, probably.  _ But… _ I can think of a few ways you could try.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, this silly little thing someone suggested. Please tell me how much you love it.


End file.
